At our Scaleup Summit in Stuttgart on Oct. 24-25th I sat down with Philipp Rose, Managing Director of Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC) for a fireside chat on whether Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) can really support companies in executing Open Innovation.
Robert Bosch is likely one of the forerunners for Corporate Venture Capital in Europe. RBVC started in 2007 and is currently deploying its third fund (size €150M, the former funds were €120M and €150M respectively). They are currently raising their fourth fund (spoiler: it will be larger than the prior ones).
Thus far, Robert Bosch has been the only LP.
Over ten years or so, RBVC has overall invested in over 50 startups around the world (RBVC currently holds a stake in 30+ companies). They have offices in Germany, Israel (Tel Aviv), Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale) and China (Shangai). They got 13 exits thus far (the most famous is Movidius sold to Intel in 2016). None of the exited companies has been acquired by Robert Bosch.
Aren’t you just a little bit intrigued? Get more in this video!
TIMELINE
0:20: How to track the performance of a Venture Capital Fund
2:10: Which is the right/minimum size of a CVC fund?
6:10: Strategic vs Financial Goals
7:10: How to effectively engage the Divisions and Business Units: Open Bosch
7:45: The KPIs of a CVC fund
8:50: The investment decision process in RBVC
10:00: How many investments and POCs per year?
11:00: Exits
11:50: “None of our portfolio companies has been acquired by Bosch” thus far!
12:30: “We introduced 4-5 companies to Bosch that have been acquired (but we have not invested)”
13:00: The variety of business models for CVC
15:00: How to invest into China
16:00: From advisor to investor